


souls cannot be fooled

by little_alien_duck, snaredrum



Series: harder better faster stronger [4]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: CONFIRMED violet snicket, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, after all these years..., ah geez these tags look dark, and they're gonna do their best to avoid all of them, it's hurt/comfort! there is definite comfort!, lemony and violet both have a lot of feelings, netflix canon compliant, no longer just an implication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-13 13:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18469651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little_alien_duck/pseuds/little_alien_duck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/snaredrum/pseuds/snaredrum
Summary: It was like pointillism; all the dots were coming together, and Violet didn't like the picture they were making.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello! we're very excited for this one. the title comes from power hungry animals by the apache relay which is a fantastic song.
> 
> if you haven't read the rest of the series, that's okay! the baudelaires and quagmires share a house together, lemony is frequently there, and violet is 27.

_ Two and a half months after Beatrice dragged Lemony Snicket into their lives. _

 

“We’re watching  _ Black Cauldron _ .” 

A chorus of groans erupted around the room. It was movie night at the Baudelaire/Quagmire home, and the rule about movie night was that when it was someone’s turn to pick the movie, they could not be overruled.

“An excellent choice, Violet,” Lemony intoned from his place in the armchair. Violet wanted to roll her eyes. While everyone else was sprawled out on the couch and floor with layers of blankets and pillows, he sat ramrod straight in his chair, hands folded, ankle crossed over his knee, like he was here for a board meeting. The same way he sat every week. 

“I’m serious, Lemony, it’s a great movie –”

Lemony looked offended, or at least as offended as his habit of minute facial expressions would allow him. “So am I. It’s a favorite of mine.” 

Violet blinked. “Oh.”

Violet was used to having to defend the masterpiece of animation. The idea of having someone on her side was nice. However, Lemony Snicket was the last person she wanted support from. But, in this case, with Sunny glaring daggers at her from her place on the floor, she would take what she could get. 

“Lemony agrees with me. Don’t worry, you’ll love it.”

Looking back on it, it wasn’t the first clue. But it was the first one that stuck in Violet’s mind, leaving her uneasy.

 

_ Five months after.  _

 

“You and Uncle Lemony do the same thing with your eyebrow.” Beatrice had stopped in the middle of her math homework to deliver this very important information. 

Violet raised her eyebrow. 

“Yeah, just like that!”

“This is urgent, I’m sure, and not at all an attempt to distract us from your work?”

They were seated around the kitchen table, pages of worksheets and one very worn textbook spread in front of them. The rest of the household was in bed asleep, or at least in bed with a book or a notebook. It was quiet in a way the house rarely was; the only sounds were the ticking of the clock on the wall and the scratch of a pencil.  

Violet and Beatrice were not so lucky. It was nearing midnight, and Beatrice still had work due tomorrow. Violet had volunteered to help her, having both a natural aptitude for math and a deep sense of patience that enabled her to sit in a chair well into the evening. 

Beatrice shrugged. “I just thought it’s funny. You’re both so good at raising one eyebrow. I keep practicing in the mirror but I can’t get it right. Did you have to practice or is it just something you can do?”

Violet sighed, figuring that if she answered it would be easier to get Beatrice back on track. “I certainly never practiced it. Okay, so if you take this fraction...”

For one infinitesimal moment, a thought crossed Violet’s mind, but before she had time to process it, she had banished to the back of her brain. She was helping Beatrice with her homework, not contemplating her relationship with Lemony Snicket. 

 

_ Six months.  _

 

“Come help us with the groceries, this is not a spectator sport!” Sunny shouted, striding inside with too many bags in her arms. Klaus stumbled in after her, carrying fewer bags but struggling just as much. 

Violet ran down the stairs, jumping the last three to land in front of her siblings. “How was the trip?”

“Productive,” Klaus answered, taking in her smile. “You seem in a good mood.”

“I put the finishing touches on the invention I’ve been working on. I figured out how to calibrate the magnets.” 

Sunny readjusted the bags in her arms, smiling herself. Violet had been complaining about those magnets for a week. “Well go put that energy to use and help us bring in the rest of the groceries.”

Violet dashed out to the car and grabbed the remaining bags. She came back into the kitchen, deposited the bags on the counter, and paused, watching Sunny meticulously organizing the spices she’d purchased. “Did you get the Ovaltine?” 

“Yes, and neither of you,” Sunny said as Lemony walked in, “are allowed to eat it.”

Sunny was not supposed to know about that. 

“What? I wouldn’t just eat the Ovaltine, I put it in a drink,” Violet mumbled. 

“Ovaltine is a power which is designed to be dissolved into a beverage, such as a glass of milk, and I would never just eat it out of the container with a spoon,” Lemony said at the same time. 

“I’ve seen you both do it!” both Klaus and Sunny exclaimed.  

Violet and Lemony looked at each other. 

“I plead the fifth,” Lemony said before turning and walking out of the kitchen. 

Violet watched him go, her good mood sinking in her chest as she remembered a moment from her childhood: her mother laughing after catching her sneaking a spoonful of  Ovaltine, an oddly melancholy look in her eye as she told Violet  _ I used to have a friend who did that too _ .

 

_ Six and a half.  _

 

“Hello? Baudelaires? Quagmires? I have some very factual documents which I believe you will find interesting.” 

Violet sighed as she looked up from the technical manual she was reading. Of course Lemony would come back when she was the only one home. Sunny and Beatrice were at school, Klaus was in class as he was working on a law degree, and the Quagmires were having a triplets day at the science museum. 

Violet had been looking forward to having the house to herself for the morning. 

“In the library, Lemony,” Violet called, knowing that he would wander in at some point – it might as well be sooner than later.

She hadn’t missed the phrasing of his statement; very factual documents could refer to information about only one thing. 

Lemony strode into the library with an expression Violet might have called excitement if she didn’t know him better. Sure enough, he was carrying a crate with VFD stenciled on the side. 

“Where did you find them?” Violet asked, marking her place with a bookmark and setting the book down. 

His expression dimmed. “I recently learned of a lockbox used by my brother, Jacques. I found it, and recovered these.” He began taking out items as she moved toward him, looking over his shoulder at the contents. “They appear to mostly be photographs. I thought you might find them interesting.”

He handed a picture to her. The colors were faded, and it was torn at one corner, but smiling up at her clear as daylight were Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire. Their arms were around each other, and they stood at the waterside – it could have been Lake Lachrymose. Violet didn’t recognize it when it wasn’t the off season. A horrible, unfixable ache thudded through her chest to see her parents look so young and happy, completely unaware of their doomed futures and what they would leave behind. 

She didn’t ever want to put it down. 

She realized Lemony was looking at her. “There are more pictures, if you would like to see them,” he said softly. 

Violet blinked her eyes before any traitorous tears could form. “I would love to.”

Wordlessly, for once in his life, Lemony handed Violet a small stack of photographs, each of which tore at her heart just a bit more. There was Uncle Monty surrounded by his snakes, her mother onstage midsong, her father in raft buffeted by river cataracts, Aunt Josephine and Ike on either side of him, paddling wildly down a river. 

There was a large group photo – on the back was written, in the neat handwriting she recognized as her father’s, “GUSTAV’S FIRST PREMIERE.” A man, Gustav she presumed – he looked vaguely familiar, and she realized with a start he was the man from  _ Zombies in the Snow _ and the VFD tapes she and her siblings had found at Caligari Carnival – stood in the center of the group. The rest all wore 3D glasses, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders. On either side of Gustav stood Jacquelyn and Larry Your-Waiter, and in the crowd of people she could pick out her parents, the Quagmire parents, and all three Snicket siblings. The picture was torn off at one end, leaving Kit as the last person on the far right, but Violet noted that there must have been another person, because there was an arm around Kit’s shoulders coming from that side. 

She was about to ask if Lemony knew who the missing person was when she noticed the tear wasn’t worn down like the rips in the other photographs; this one was fresh. A fresh tear, a person standing next to Kit Snicket – 

_ Oh _ .

She wasn’t going to ask him about that. Instead, she continued to rifle through the photographs. 

There was one, small enough to be placed in a wallet, that caught Violet’s eye. It was a black and white picture of a smiling baby, and it was a baby that Violet recognized. 

It was a picture of her. 

With trembling hands, she picked it up. 

“Why did Jacques have a picture of me?” 

When Lemony spoke, he did it slowly, as if each word took effort. 

“Violet, that is a picture of me.”

The floor went out from under her.

Convinced that she had seen a picture of herself, her mind had wandered back to her parents’ journal, the one she had read during their year on the island. Ever since then there had been a question Violet had asked herself over and over. 

But she had been asking the wrong question. Instead of asking “why would I have been named Lemony?” she should have been asking “why wasn’t Klaus named Lemony?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! our next chapter should be up soon.
> 
> one of us adores the black cauldron and will defend it with her life. the other one hasn't seen it. feel free to guess who is who.
> 
> \- snaredrum, little_alien_duck


	2. Chapter 2

“My name would have been Lemony if I had been a boy, but Klaus is a boy and his name isn’t Lemony.” Violet’s voice was calm, but the words sounded far away to her own ears – like someone else was saying them.

Someone else who was biologically related to Lemony Snicket. There was only one way Violet Baudelaire and Lemony Snicket could be biologically related, and it explained all sorts of little things which had puzzled her since Beatrice had brought Lemony home with her. 

It made a logical sense. But that wasn’t enough. 

Violet stood up straight and dropped the picture back in the box. “You’re not my father.” Her tone was casual; it wasn’t a protest, it was the truth. 

Lemony wore an unreadable expression, but made no move to speak. His silence unnerved her; she wanted him to agree with her. “You’re not my father,” she repeated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was a statement of fact, the same way that bronze was a alloy of copper. She knew it the same way that she knew that the farther back she pushed on the handle of her wrench the more torque she could apply to whatever invention she was working on. She knew it the same way she knew Klaus was her brother and Sunny was her sister. 

Lemony took a deep breath. “I’m not your father in any way that matters.” 

Violet crossed her arms. That statement had not done anything to comfort her because it in no way excluded the possibility of a biological connection. “But, see, you’re not my father in any way at all. Bertrand Baudelaire is.”

“I agree.”

Violet felt tears stinging at the corner of her eyes, which didn’t make sense because Lemony wasn’t her father, so why did it matter anyway?

Lemony continued. “Bertrand Baudelaire is your father.”

Violet looked at the picture again because looking Lemony in the face was the last thing she wanted to do. Unfortunately, looking at the picture also meant looking Lemony in the face. 

It should have just been a picture of her. That would have made this so much easier. 

With a flare of frustration that made her want to scream she realized that Klaus and Sunny were going to see this picture and have the same reaction she had. 

Unless she hid it from them. 

But she couldn’t do that either. Violet had spent the vast majority of her life suffering because adults had decided to hide things from her; she didn’t want to make her parents’ mistakes. When the three of them had adopted Beatrice, they had agreed that they wouldn’t keep things from her the way that so many people had kept things from them. All it had ever done was cause them misery. 

It was hard to catch her breath. She felt trapped. “I –” Violet looked down, took as deep a breath as she could, and looked up to meet Lemony’s eyes.

“Okay, fine, I may admit that we share some similar DNA, but I am only doing this because I don’t want to hide anything from the others.” 

“What do you want to tell them?” Lemony asked cautiously. 

“How much are you going to tell  _ me _ ?”

“I will tell you as much as you want to know.” 

“Everything. But first: why is this only coming up now? If you’re so willing to tell me everything.”

“Bertrand is your father. I never wanted you to feel like I was trying to claim a role in your life that I did not deserve.”

“Then what the fuck is your role?” Violet was done with Lemony’s enigmatic responses and beating around the bush. She just wanted an answer. She wanted to her him  _ say it _ . 

Lemony sighed, and returned her gaze with deep set seriousness. “I am your biological father. However, the definition of family is a complicated thing, and it is up to you to decide what kind of role I should have in your life.”

She hated hearing it. She needed to hear it. “Did my father know?” Her voice was thin as she held back her tears. She refused to call him “Bertrand,” or her “real father;” she knew exactly who he was to her, and Lemony wasn’t going to change that.

“I can’t say for sure. But I did know both of your parents very well. And I know Beatrice loved him enough to be honest with him. And I know Bertrand was smart enough to put the pieces together and figure it out. But above all else, I know beyond certainty that it would not have mattered to him. You are his daughter, and he loved you dearly.” 

Standing became too much; Violet sat down before her knees could give out. She realized her hands were shaking and instinctively clasped them together to hide the tremors. It was a callback to the days when she had to hide her fear from the people around her, and she hated that it was coming back out now.

“Violet, this doesn’t change anything,” Lemony said, sounding unsure of how to comfort her, or even if he should be comforting her. 

“Of course it does! It changes everything!” Violet shouted back. She let out the sob she’d been fighting back. It was loud, and ugly, and she hated it but she couldn’t stop. “Did my parents even love each other? Or was Bertrand just some stand in for you?”

Very slowly, Lemony sat down next to her. “Violet, I know for a fact that your parents loved each other an incalculable amount. Beatrice did love me once, but Bertrand was who she chose to spend her life with.” 

That only made Violet cry harder. It wasn’t fair. Such a larger part of her life had been so miserable, and now the one thing she had from the time before that – her memories – had the same cracks and blemishes that the rest of her life did.

With a sigh, Lemony stood and walked out of the room, pausing only to straighten his suit jacket. 

Violet didn’t want to be in the same room as him, hated that they were having this conversation, and yet felt unimaginably worse when he was gone. He didn’t care. He was leaving just like the rest of the adults in her life when it got difficult. Violet sat and sobbed, tears streaking down her face, mixing with snot in a way she was aware was absolutely disgusting. Her chest heaved, and her head pounded. This was the worst she had felt in a very long time. 

She had pulled her legs to her chest like she was a small child, tears staining the fabric around her knees when she heard the dull thud of something heavy being set down on the table. 

Violet looked up to see Lemony standing there with a tray of tea and a box of tissues, looking not quite sure if he had done the right thing. 

She wiped at her face with her sleeve in a half-hearted attempt to hide her state of disarray. Unfolding her body and grabbing a tissue, she gave Lemony an odd look as he started pouring milk and stirring sugar into a cup of tea. “You -” Her voice came out raspy, and she cleared her throat. “I thought you believed tea was supposed to be bitter?”

Lemony snapped his head up, a deer in the headlights look that Violet would have found amusing under different circumstances. “Well, yes I do. But um,” he looked back down at the cup before extending it toward her. “You don’t.” It was the first time Violet had ever heard him say a sentence that didn’t sound rehearsed, like a play actor.

He didn’t say anything else, just sat back down in his chair and drank his tea. Violet knew that the tea was a peace offering. It was Lemony’s way of saying that while there was nothing he could do about all the mistakes he and her parents had made, he could get a few things right, no matter how small they might be. He could remember how she liked her tea, and he could try to help her when she was upset.

They sat like that for a long time, just drinking their tea, and in Violet’s case, wiping her nose. This was not how Violet had wanted to spend her morning, and she was still a little bitter that she hadn’t gotten to finish her technical manual. But she knew that Lemony was trying, and he was the most honest adult in her life. 

And, Violet realized with a start, Lemony saw her as an adult. Her childhood had been killed without ceremony, and she had had to act like an adult since she was fourteen. But very rarely had she ever been treated as such – in fact, many of the troubles in her life stemmed from that very problem. She’d had to be the adult for so long that she didn’t realize the discrepancy between how she felt and how she appeared was closing, but now she was twenty-seven. To Lemony, she was an adult, which meant that he knew she was capable of deciding what kind of relationship they had, but it didn’t stop him from trying to comfort her.  

Her anger was beginning to dissipate.  

It was a start.

“Violet, I have a question,” Lemony asked, after they had been sitting in silence for a small eternity.  

She made a small noise of acknowledgement. 

“You have always seemed to have a certain disdain for me and I have been ruminating on my behavior to attempt to discern the reason.” 

“That’s not a question,” Violet said with a smile so slight it almost didn’t count. Lemony was always nitpicking grammer, but two could play that game. 

Lemony sighed, though he sounded more amused than exasperated. “You sound like Kit, which as I am sure you know, is one of the highest compliments it is possible to receive.” 

He paused, taking a sip of his tea before asking his question. “Excluding the events of today, why do you dislike me, Violet?” 

Violet played with the now-empty cup, turning it over in her hands. “It’s just…” she began, before taking a steadying breath and sitting up straight. He had been open and honest with her, she could be open and honest with him. She met his eyes. “After our parents died, Klaus and Sunny and I weren’t able to rely on any of the adults in our lives. For years, every adult we knew either was actively trying to kill us, or died. Sometimes both, in that order. When Sunny was born, I made a promise to our parents that I would protect them. And I have. And I will continue to do so. I worked  _ so hard _ to get us here, where we’re safe, and stable, and happy. I’m responsible for them, and for the Quagmires, and for Beatrice. And so when Beatrice brought you home that day, I felt...threatened. Like it could all be taken away from me.” The passive voice hung in the air.  _ By you _ .  _ By VFD _ . She would let him fill in the blanks.

“I see.” 

There was nothing else for Lemony to say, and they both knew it. There had been too many empty promises of safety in Violet’s life for words alone to mean much anymore. If Violet was going to trust him, it was going to be because he proved he was worthy of that trust through his actions. 

“My turn to ask you a question,” Violet said, turning back to stare at her cup. 

“Anything you want to know,” Lemony answered.

“Why were you so weird around me?”

“Violet, has this morning been pleasant?” he asked instead of answering. 

“Not particularly,” Violet said, beginning to see where he was going. 

He gave a very uncharacteristic shrug and sipped his tea. 

“Fair point,” Violet said. “Well, if you are going to keep hanging around, and I guess it would be kind disappointing if you left now, we should probably try to stop being weird around each other.”

“That would seem to be advisable,” Lemony agreed. 

He turned to her and held out his hand in an oddly business like way. Violet looked at it with a raised eyebrow. 

“A handshake? Seriously?”

Lemony looked taken aback. “Is that not what families do?” 

Violet rolled her eyes but shook his hand anyway. 

Lemony Snicket was not her father. Bertrand Baudelaire was. But Lemony was kind and honest and well read, and for now, that was enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again for reading! we plan on having one more chapter. 
> 
> a conversation we had while writing this:  
> 1: I THINK lemony should say it's hip to fuck bees  
> 2: shut the fuck up  
> feel free to guess who said what
> 
> \- snaredrum, little_alien_duck


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *klaus voice* we can't all be having a bad day, violet called it first

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you read this prior to the posting of this chapter, you may have noticed we changed the tags! that's because of this chapter, where we bring in the rest of the family.

Violet had been acting odd since Klaus had gotten home from class that afternoon. She was pacing, something she normally didn’t do unless she was actively working on an invention, which didn’t seem to be the case. And she seemed distracted; the only full sentence Klaus had heard her say was, “I have something I need to tell you once the others get home.” 

That hadn’t exactly been comforting. 

She’d disappeared after that, running up to her workshop. Klaus sat at the kitchen island reading  _ The Fault in Our Stars _ until two thirty rolled around and it was time for him to pick up Sunny and Beatrice from school. He went upstairs and stood awkwardly outside the open door of Violet’s workshop. 

“Hey Violet? I’m going to go get Sunny and Bea.”

She glanced at him for only a second before looking back down at the machinery in her hands. Klaus knew Violet’s inventing methodology, and this wasn’t it; the metal looked more like scrap than anything else, and she seemed to be twisting some wires around each other without any real purpose. 

The real giveaway, though, was that her hair was down.

“I’ll be back soon,” Klaus said after a moment had passed of her still not responding. 

A piece of metal slipped through her fingers, landing on the table with a clang that echoed throughout the room. That seemed to bring her back to the present. 

“Right, yes, I’ll tell you everything after you pick up Sunny and Bea, and the Quagmires get home.” 

Klaus nodded as he walked down the hall, wondering what the hell could have shaken Violet up this badly. 

  
  


***

 

Sunny threw open the door and launched herself into the car, bellyflopping across the backseat. Beatrice stood at the curb, unmoving, looking with a raised eyebrow between Sunny and the backpack she had dropped on the ground. “I’m not picking that up for you.”

Sunny groaned. 

Klaus sighed, twisting around to look at her. “Come on Sunny, we’re holding up the carpool line.” 

Sunny turned her head so it wasn’t pressing into the seat, letting Klaus hear her groan more clearly. 

Beatrice crossed her arms. “And you wonder why they made a chore wheel for who picks us up from school.”

With as much petulance as is possible to put into movement, Sunny pulled herself into a sitting position and dragged her backpack into the car. She slid to the left, giving Beatrice room to sit down.

Klaus pulled the car away from the school, offering a polite wave to an unsmiling teacher. The teacher was being whiny, in Klaus’s opinion – this was a relatively uneventful pick up for them.

“Sunny got into an argument today,” Beatrice said in a fake casual voice. Though her relationship with Sunny was unusual, somewhere between parental and sibling, their close ages meant that they frequently engaged in sibling warfare. In this case, Beatrice has just fired the first shot. 

Klaus sighed. “What about this time?” 

“Some dummy in my class said that hypnosis wasn’t real and I told him that I knew firsthand that it was.”   

Klaus would have closed his eyes in his exasperation if he hadn’t been driving. “Could my trauma  _ not _ be the first thing we talk about when we get in the car?”

Beatrice giggled.  _ Wow _ , Klaus thought,  _ we really gave her a skewed sense of humor _ .  _ I’m sorry, Kit.  _

“Also,” he continued, “Violet has been acting strange all afternoon and said that she had something to tell us tonight, so we especially can’t have this conversation right now.” 

Sunny went still, looking at what she could see of Klaus’s face in the rear view mirror. “Wait, strange how? Is she okay?”

Klaus sighed. Again. It was beginning to feel repetitive. “Honestly? I’m not sure. She seemed...anxious. Apprehensive, maybe. For right now, I’m just going to trust that she knows her limits, and that she will tell us everything tonight. We’ll have to wait for the Quagmires, though; they’re still having triplets day.”

Beatrice gave a soft snort, cutting through the tension stifling the car. “That is, unless they’ve been kicked out of wherever they went.”

  
  


***

 

“We got kicked out.”

Isadora and Duncan sat on the living room couch, both of them looking disgruntled. Isadora’s arms were crossed, and Duncan had splayed his legs across her lap, his head leaning against the armrest and his eyes closed.

“Where’s Quigley?” Klaus asked, praying that they were not about to say the police station.

“Quigley is in the shower, due to an incident outside of his power,” Isadora said with a glance at her brother. 

“It was not my fault!” Duncan shot back. 

Beatrice turned to Klaus and Sunny, holding out her arms in a  _ what did I tell you? _ gesture. 

“If that security guard hadn’t –”

Sunny cut Duncan off. “It truly pains me to say this, but as much as I want to hear this story, we don’t have time for it. Klaus said Violet has something to tell us, and I’m…” She looked over at Klaus, who nodded reassuringly. “I’m worried about her.” 

The Quagmires both immediately sat up straight, the annoyance on their faces transforming into unease. 

It was at this moment that Quigley walked into the room, still toweling his hair dry. “I think I’ve got all of the maple syrup off of me but I’m not sure.” 

He stopped when he took in their faces, slowly lowering the towel. “I can’t help but feel I misread the room.”

“Violet has something she wants to tell us. She seemed upset earlier,” Klaus explained. 

“She does indeed.” Lemony walked into the room, hands clasped behind his back, looking even more somber than usual. “She would have come down to meet you as you arrived, but she has been preoccupied in the library. Come, let’s go meet her now.”

“What’s she been doing?” Klaus asked. 

“Rehearsing.” 

The group exchanged looks, but Lemony had already begun walking up the stairs. 

 

***

 

“Okay, so here goes,” Violet began, pacing back and forth in front of the group. She stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to face them. “Lemony is my biological father.” 

There was a stunned silence. If Violet hadn’t been such a nervous wreck all day, they would have thought she was joking. 

“I…” Klaus didn’t know what the rest of his sentence was going to be. “What?” He wasn’t really asking for clarification; he had heard her perfectly, but the words weren’t connecting in his mind.

Violet was wrapping and unwrapping her ribbon around the fingers of her left hand. Without saying anything, she picked up a small piece of paper off the table and handed it to him. Sunny, being the closest to him as they sat on the couch, leaned over to look at it. It was an old photograph, sepia toned, of a baby with familiar features. 

Klaus looked from it back up to Violet, abject confusion written on his face. “A baby picture of you? I don’t understand –”

“It’s not me.” Violet wrapped the ribbon tighter around her fingers, but otherwise remained still. “It’s Lemony.” 

Klaus blinked, his arm falling to his lap. Sunny ripped the picture from his hand and scrutinized it, looking from it to Violet, back to it, and then to Lemony, all with a highly critical eye. If Klaus’s world in that moment could expand beyond his sisters and Lemony, he would have seen the Quagmires and Beatrice watching with wide eyes, unsure of what to say, or even if they should speak at all. As it was, Klaus didn’t notice.

Violet continued. “That’s just the proof. I wasn’t…” Violet trailed off, eyes darting around her as if she had forgotten where the armchair was before lowering herself into it. Her leg started bouncing as soon as she sat down. There wasn’t room on the couch for her, but Klaus wasn’t sure if she would want to sit next to them anyway. They all had odd, frustratingly fluctuating opinions on personal space and being touched. “I wasn’t sure if you would believe me.” 

Klaus wanted to protest, but the words caught in his throat as he realized she was right. This was – it was just too much. It wasn’t that he would think she was  _ lying _ , not about something like this. Trust in each other, even (or especially) in the face of the outrageous, had been so crucial to their survival for so long that it had become permanently ingrained in their relationship. It was, rather, that he would have a hard time convincing  _ himself _ of it as fact, even if he did believe her. Denial was powerful, and didn’t much care about making sense. With this photograph, he was able to push through it much more quickly than he could without it. 

He breathed in deeply through his nose, held it, and breathed out. He opened his mouth to talk. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but Violet’s anxiety was visibly growing – her hands more tense as they fiddled with the ribbon, her leg more violent as it bounced, her shoulders beginning to hunch over – and he wanted to say something, anything, to put her at ease. 

But before he could do so, Sunny spoke up.

“Could you...explain?” Her voice was soft, and quiet, and confused. For the first time in years, she sounded  _ younger _ than her age. 

Violet looked between Klaus and Sunny, taking in a shaky breath. She locked eyes with Lemony from across the room; he nodded. 

She sat up, squared her shoulders, and explained.

 

***

 

“I didn’t think our lives could get weirder,” Quigley said into the silence. None of them rest of them had said anything while Violet spoke, letting her and Lemony explain. It was only after they had finished and silence engulfed the room did Quigley speak. He didn’t have anything else to say. 

Violet managed a watery laugh. “Just leave it to Lemony.” 

When she didn’t say anything else, Klaus stood up. He crossed the room to stand in front of his sister. Violet shot out of her chair as he approached, looking at him like she was worried that he might start yelling or walk away from her in disgust. 

The sight of Violet staring at him with so much anxiety felt like a physical pain in Klaus’s chest. He needed her to know that he wasn’t going to leave her. 

He could hear Sunny behind him, having followed him from the couch. Without saying a word, they both pulled a very surprised Violet into a bone crushing hug. After one stiff moment, Violet hugged them back, clinging to them like they might disappear at any moment. They all knew what it was like to have people disappear, but they thought that if they held each other tight enough, they could make sure it wouldn’t happen again. 

The three of them stood like that for several moments, long enough that Isadora cleared her throat. 

“Do you want us to leave?” she asked as the Baudelaires broke apart. 

When none of them answered, she grabbed Beatrice and Quigley’s hands. “You know what, we’ll go order take out.” 

“We’ll get Indian,” Duncan said with a smile, knowing it was Violet’s favorite. 

They left the room, Lemony trailing after them after exchanging a look with Violet. The Baudelaire siblings were alone in the library. 

Violet sniffed. “Are you – are you upset at all?”

“Yeah, we just hugged you because we’re so mad,” Sunny said, but there was no bite in her words. 

Violet smiled, but then the tension crept back into her face. “Are you sure?”

Klaus tilted his head, taking half a step closer to his sister. “Of course. Why would we be upset?

Violet ducked her head. “It’s just, if Lemony is my father, then that means...we, the three of us, we’re not…” She gestured between herself and Sunny and Klaus. 

Klaus realized what she meant, and he knew her well enough to know why she wasn’t saying it out loud. If Sunny and Klaus weren’t already thinking it, she didn’t want to bring it up and put the idea in their minds. And, if she did say it out loud, it would become real to herself as well.

_ She’s terrified _ , Klaus thought.

“Violet,” Klaus began, taking her hand. “You are our sister. I know it the same way I know Mary Shelley invented science fiction.”

“And the way I know that you never salt your soup before you taste it,” Sunny added, holding Violet’s other hand.

Violet opened her mouth to speak, but Klaus beat her to it. “Nothing has changed, Violet. You’re our sister.” 

“Yeah,” Sunny nodded, leaning against her older sister’s shoulder. 

There were tears in Violet’s eyes, but she was laughing. She felt like an utterly stifling weight had been removed from her chest. She was with her siblings. Nothing would separate them. 

“We should probably head downstairs,” she said, a watery smile on her face. 

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Klaus asked, looking at her with concern.

“I’m sure.” 

The Baudelaires walked downstairs, arms wrapped around each other.

Isadora told them the food would arrive soon, and Quigley put a VHS of the 1938  _ Dawn Patrol _ down on the kitchen island with a not-so-subtle wink in Violet’s direction.

Violet was sitting at the breakfast table, her siblings on either side of her, when she noticed Lemony standing by the doorway, looking like he was unsure as to whether or not he should be there. He caught Violet’s eye, becoming more uncomfortable, if that were possible. 

“Just sit down, Lemony,” Violet said.  

He glanced over to Beatrice, who looked delighted at this development. He sat down between Beatrice and Duncan, across from Violet. He offered a hesitant smile to her, and she gave one back. 

Beatrice suddenly jerked up in her seat. “Wait, Violet!”

“Yes?”

“Does this mean we’re cousins?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! we hope you enjoyed! also a HUGE shoutout to everyone who has commented, y'all are much appreciated. 
> 
> we’re dedicated to klaus having a wide taste in books. 
> 
> (bertrand baudelaire upon finding out that beatrice is pregnant with lemony's child: this is one doodle that can't be undid home skillet)
> 
> \- snaredrum, little_alien_duck


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